Well Latics fans deal with being a minority in the town by clinging on to the fact Football is more popular when that makes it worse. To be less popular than a team playing a minority sport shows you everything. There's not many towns around with a football team smaller than the RL team. In fact, come to think about it, where else is there that has both a football team and an RL team but the RL team draws in more fans?

Either way, having rewatched it, I don't think theres much you can level at Sam although I don't doubt he was being a dick before the camera came out. Joel's behavior is bad and so is the clubs response by paying the barstaff hush money.

Well that was money well spent then!

Your club has a decent bunch of fans, I'll give you that. Fully expected the usual blaming the victim and snowflake accusations all round.

I wonder what his urine sample came back like....

This doesnt surprise me at all with Joel but how do we know nothing has been done about it internally? For all we know, Joel may have been 'playing for free' for the last few weeks

Also, now the video is out then the CPS may decide to take a look

The problem is that by not revealing they've dealt with an incident of breach of discipline (which it surely is) internally, as other clubs have done following players being dropped/fined, once the details get out it makes it look like the club care more about covering for their stars than disciplining them for poor behaviour. The club must have been aware of how the video looked when they tried to keep it hushed up, and that if it did get out it would be incredibly embarrassing. They could have saved face by revealing Joel had been punished, even if they didn't give specifics. That way when the video did surface we'd see what he did and think the club did the right thing. Now the club is open to accusations of favouritism, of Rads just covering for his mate and keeping it quiet and of caring more about protecting their star players than protecting bar staff [ifrom[/i their players.

Just watching it now my my it’s worse than being there our games fitness was gone after the first few moments it’s a shocker and then to watch Joel’s star turn you think things can’t get worse dear me I know we do daft things drunk but in the public eye you can’t do that and expect to get away with it

The worrying thing for me is that Joel is supposedly taking up some kind of management position at the club when he finishes - that is really going to drive up standards isn't it?

Spot on. An awful event, badly handled IMO.

I can guarantee you wouldn’t have caught Joel doing this when at Saracens.
Says a lot about our culture, both at Wigan & within the wider sport.

The trouble is that, even if an apology is offered to the bar staff and it's accepted, the fact remains that yet again Wigan players have been misbehaving while out on the lash.

I know there are one or two stalwarts who still defend players' rights to go out and get legless, but my response would be: 'Just so long as you don't expect them to be winners on the pitch'.

Time and again in recent years, we've been hearing about players getting into scuffles, getting injured, getting on the wrong side of the law, staggering around town in the early hours. On top of that embarrassment, what kind of effect is it having on their fitness? They might look lean and mean on the outside, but we've all had a heavy night and been affected by it for several days - we all know from experience that this is something you can't just shake off come match day.

For professional sportsmen, this is just not good enough - not if we want to compete at the top level.

So, is it just someone being a bell, for which a slapped wrist will be adequate, or is it someone whose behaviour exemplifies what currently seems to be a communal disrespect for the club, the fans and, judging from this video, just about everyone else?

Devil’s advocate - This is bad and I’m not defending anybody here but this is very similar to the Albert Kelly incident in McDonalds. Hull made no public comment and within days of it coming out, he was given a new contract. I’m interested to see how Wigan handle this situation. I’m pretty sure the Albert Kelly one is on YouTube if you haven’t seen it.